July 8, 2009

Harlem -- it still stinks

In general, places that had strong fundamental value have not been hit so hard by the bust as those where the developers and transplants were betting on the idea that their supreme coolness would transform a shithole into a metropolis.

So, New York hasn't been nearly as devastated as Phoenix or Las Vegas because it's fucking New York City. But overhyping and its subsequent bursting is a fractal phenomenon that you can see at any level of zooming in or out. Thus, even within sturdy New York, the Upper East Side wasn't as overhyped and hasn't suffered so bad of a hangover as Harlem -- because Harlem has never had much going for it, while the UES has.

Some of the dopes interviewed by the NYT counter that, no, really, Harlem is still on its way to becoming the Next Big Thing -- after all, look at all the hip new shopping districts we've built! Well, swell, except those are merely a reflection of the irrational exuberance of the bubble years. How many technology start-ups did you found? Or medical research labs? Or anything productive? Harlem is lucky to have Columbia University nearby, which actually does make stuff happen, or it would look even worse.

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Some of the dopes interviewed by the NYT counter that, no, really, Harlem is still on its way to becoming the Next Big Thing -- after all, look at all the hip new shopping districts we've built! Well, swell, except those are merely a reflection of the irrational exuberance of the bubble years. How many technology start-ups did you found? Or medical research labs? Or anything productive?

I'm also fairly sure, though I'd have to research it to be 100% sure, that most of the retail and other commercial developments built in Harlem in the past few years have had various types of government assistance, such as subsidies, tax breaks, access to cheap city-owned land, etc. National retail chains haven't been beating down the metaphorical door to invest in Harlem without government assistance.

On a different but related note, a significant share of the foreclosures in the "sand states" of California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida have been in distant exurbs, places like the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. Many of these aren't particularly desirable areas, if for no reason other than their remoteness and lengthy commuting times.

The only way Harlem could ever become "the next big thing" is through gentrification---i.e. black people leaving the neighborhood as SWPLers move in.

Now, that might be helpful to blacks there---moving out of the ghetto to new neighborhoods might spur the desire to earn enough to go back, change of scenery=change of mind, etc.

However, they will fight for their now-ghetto. Sharpton will organize race riots, black churches will scream for blood, and everyone will say infusing a neighborhood with money and safety "ruins" Harlem.

The poverty pimps will win this one, even if the economy upswings. So long as blacks congregate in Harlem, Sharpton and his ilk will always have power, and they will extort.